Dark Worlds
by Nushka1
Summary: Her sire is dead and Max wants to know why. The search for answers takes her back to Arcadia Bay. Secrets get unearthed, old and new faces alike force themselves into her life – and all the while she needs to tightly hold onto her sanity, lest her cursed blood's madness takes over completely. Vampire AU
1. Questions And Answers

**Words of Nush: **Hello everyone! I've had the idea for a LiS Vampire AU for forever, so this is it.

A few things you'll need to know: 1. I enjoy Pricefield as much as the next person, but Chasefield is my guilty pleasure. There needs to be more! 2. If you ever played **Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines**, you'll notice a few things here and there. This is _not _a crossover, though. I simply borrowed a few things of lore, because when it comes to Vampires VTMB is my go-to. 3. Max will be kind of OOC, given the circumstances. I'll try not to completely flip her character, but, again: circumstances. 4. The first LiS will be my main source of information for this fic. BtS and LiS 2 will barely play a role if any at all.

**Warnings**: explicit language, explicit violence, explicit sexual themes. Read at your own risk. This is a dark, bloody fic.

Enjoy!

* * *

A strangled sob escaped her throat. There, in the middle of the living room, in front of the fireplace, was a pile of clothes sitting on a pile of ash. This couldn't be real.

Eyes wide, Max dropped to her knees, her shaking fingers buried into her hair.

Her sire was dead.

She wanted to cry.

"He...hehehe…" A giggle broke through. Her fingers' grip on her hair tightened, the old wood of the floor dug into her knees.

That pile of ash in front of her had been her sire. The man who turned her into what she was now, was gone.

Her giggles subsided slowly.

She had to focus. Things needed to be done. Questions needed to be asked, answers needed to be sought.

She reached one of her hands into the ashes of her sire. It still felt warm to the touch – which was weird, since he wasn't particularly hot when still alive.

_"No kidding! Fugly as shit. But hung like a horse! Remember when we walked in on him jerking-"_

Her hands clasped her head tightly, doing her best to tune _Her _out. She needed to focus, foc_us, focus!_

Getting quickly back up to her feet, she was about to walk to the bathroom but felt herself sway. Her shin crashed painfully against the low coffee table, but it registered merely as a dull ache, barely making it through the dark recesses of her mind. What did register, was how the walls suddenly closed in on her, how her vision narrowed as the edges darkened, tendrils of shadows creeping in, threatening to take over once more-

"FOCUS!"

Max jerked away from the bathroom's cracked mirror hanging over the sink. If she were still capable of breathing, she knew she would do so heavily; she would be panting, desperately gasping for air. If she still were able to sweat, she knew she'd be drenched.

She didn't know how she made it to the bathroom, how the walls hadn't swallowed her, but it didn't matter. All was well. _All was well_.

This hadn't happened in a while. About a year ago, last she remembered. Vampire hunters had killed her birth-family. After interrogating them under torture, or so her sire had told her. He didn't skimp on any of the gory details – he _was_ kind enough to want to spare her those, but she insisted. So, he told her. Broken fingers, removed nails, drilled holes in their kneecaps. The whole shebang.

All in the random hopes of them having information on their Vampire daughter.

Which was stupid. For her parents, Vampires didn't exist, and, for all her parents knew, their daughter was abducted by some criminal and likely dead by now. Mundane people couldn't possibly know of this world and _she _wouldn't dare tell them. She'd be executed by some Vampire-boss-person – or whatever her sire had called them – before she would have been able to utter a single word. But, apparently, asking the wrong people dumb questions was common behaviour for Vampire hunters these days.

_Anyways_. Her family thought she had been abducted in the big city and assumed her dead. Max had even visited her grave one night, which was a hilarious experience, thanks to the other _She_.

But back on track – the last time she almost _cracked _was when she learned of her parents' fate. Her blood's notoriously fragile minds – they weren't called _crazy_, _mad_ or _nutcases _for shits and giggles – became practically _unhinged _when they were forced to face emotionally challenging situations.

Many simply embraced it, but she didn't want to. A semblance of self was important to her. To completely lose herself in her mind, to not being able to differentiate between what was real and what wasn't – she couldn't imagine living like that for the rest of eternity. Those who did probably thought they'd be living as if they'd be constantly and permanently high on acid or shrooms.

But she didn't want to.

_"You already thought that."_

She sighed and looked into the mirror. "Shut up please, I need to focus."

Her reflection huffed at her, all sickly pale skin, covered in a dark hoodie, and messy brown hair. _"Bitch."_

Max ignored the other _She _for the moment and tried to focus on the task at hand. Mirrors helped. "The...ash was still warm because he died just before we got home."

_"Duh."_

"Everything looked…everything looked normal. No fights…"

_"Maybe he knew the person who killed him," _her reflection mused.

Max nodded. All those crime-shows made her other _She_ a decent detective, no doubt. She rolled her eyes at her reflection's smug smirk. "I want to know who killed him. He was...family. He was our sire."

_"Yep." _Her reflection nodded in agreement._ "Gareth was a bitter old fart, but we could have had a worse sire. He didn't deserve to die."_

"What do we do now?" Max wondered, unsure where to even begin.

_"Ask questions, seek answers. Wasn't that what you were thinking earlier?"_

"Yeah...yeah." She nodded to herself, her reflection nodding with her in tandem. The other _She _had left for now. Her mindscape was quiet again – or as quiet as it could get for her.

Constant whispers of a million voices, intertwined into a mess she couldn't understand most of the time, meant _quiet _for her since she got turned.

But she was used to it by now. Not hearing those whispers in her head anymore, that unrelenting background noise, would probably drive her madder than giving in to her actual madness. Hearing those whispers was almost comforting these days.

She looked into the mirror and her reflection – her normal reflection – looked straight back at her. She traced the crack splitting the mirror's surface with a finger, frowning in thought, wondering where to begin, before finally making a decision.

Turning away from the sink, she left the bathroom. The walls stayed where they were supposed to be staying, shadows didn't creep in from the corners of her vision.

All was well.

Max walked farther down the hallway, past the walls with their colours peeling off and the open doors leading to unused rooms, until she reached the master bedroom. She stepped in carefully, almost fearing her sire to suddenly show up and punish her for trespassing into his private space.

The other _She _snickered in Max's head. _"We should have brought a UV lamp."_

"Ew." Max looked around the room, then stopped, her head cocked to the side.

Her sire was a messy man, but she wasn't sure he was _this _messy.

_"Someone looked for something." _

Max agreed in her head. The mattress on the bed was turned over, every drawer was pulled out with the contents strewn across the room. It even looked like holes were punched into the walls, as if someone was thinking that Gareth had hidden something there.

_"How would someone be capable of killing a Vampire and then search around the mansion in such a short time?" _the other _She_ wondered.

"Couldn't have been a hunter," Max muttered. "No human is this fast." She walked towards the wall at the far end of the room. Putting her own fist through one of the holes, she marvelled at how much space there still was between the edges of the hole and her fist. It was safe to assume the culprit was a giant. As in, an actual giant.

_"Do you think they found what they were looking for?"_

"How am I supposed to know?" Max replied with a frown. "They could even still be here."

That wasn't really a comforting thought, but it made more sense than a giant with supernatural speed.

Sure, considering the world she was forced to become a part of, such a thing wasn't completely _out there_, but still pretty unlikely.

Still, she couldn't smell anybody – not even the faintest trace. No one but she and _She _were inside the mansion.

"You know," Max began, talking into the empty room, "if Gareth would own something someone would kill him over, he wouldn't hide it in here, right?"

_"Makes sense, but where would he hide it then?" _

Max could only shrug in reply. It wasn't like her sire and she were all buddy-buddy with each other. It wasn't like he shared his deepest, darkest secrets with her.

She sat down on the floor, her back leaning against the wall-turned-swiss-cheese. "What did you get into, Gareth?" She muttered, combing a hand through her messed up hair, trying to make it look at least a little cared for.

She missed him already. He _was_ a bit of an idiot and he _was_ the reason she was what she was now. He was the reason she was constantly on the brink of slipping into insanity now, always toeing that line.

However, Gareth was also the one who chose her as a companion, a friend, a sort of protégé. He could have just tossed her aside after turning her, but he didn't. He showed her the ropes, so to speak. Thanks to him, she could feed without breaking down in tears because she drained some hooker dry – when there weren't blood bags available. Thanks to him, she knew how to handle her blood's madness.

Considering the circumstances surrounding her entire situation, she had to admit that she was extremely lucky with her sire.

She had heard of others, as rare as it was, who used freshly turned fledgelings as some sort of sex-slaves. Others turned humans just for the kick and ignored them afterwards...

...and fledgelings were _extremely, aggressively _hungry. Gareth said that, if sires didn't take care of their hunger, if they didn't provide them with blood, they'd be killed by the Vampire police people. Keeping the secret of this world's existence intact was more important than nursing babies, especially when _that_ wasn't even anyone else's duty than the sire's.

So, yes – she had been lucky with Gareth. Very much so.

And now he was gone. A pile of ash in the living room. She could just move on, of course, but that wouldn't feel right. She owed it to him, to find answers.

And she was curious. Really, _really _curious.

Because, to be honest, Gareth was a nobody in this world. _His _form of their blood's madness didn't even particularly stand out in any shape or form. He wasn't important to anybody but her. And to her, he only really was important because he was nice to her instead of being a dick of a sire. It really wasn't a high standard she was setting there.

Considering all those things, the whole killing-him-then-searching-his-bedroom-thing was really starting to look random. _Too _random to actually be random.

Feeling energized with newfound determination, Max got up to her feet again. She left the bedroom and made her way to the –

Dry-heaving, she stopped in her tracks. The smell – no, the _stench _was overwhelming, like rotten flesh, dumped in a public toilet which hadn't been cleaned in decades and was still being used.

She clasped a hand over her mouth and nose, desperately trying not to vomit. Throwing up a stomach full of undigested blood was unpleasant at the best of times.

Then the sound of a broken window had her head snap upwards before the sound of cracking concrete had her head snap towards the street. She quickly rushed towards the closest window and looked out, but saw nothing. She opened it and jumped out, falling a couple of stories and landing gracefully on her feet.

The walkway leading up to the, for humans at least, derelict mansion was as empty as ever.

A tentative sniff, with her hands still covering her nose and mouth, confirmed the still lingering presence of that disgusting stench. How had she not noticed it before? It made no sense. It was so overpowering, it would be impossible to miss! She smelled it from a story above!

A shiver ran down her spine. Just thinking about it made her nauseous.

She walked up to the crack in the walkway's concrete. A low whistle escaped her the moment she caught sight of it. "Damn." The impact must have been quite immense if the crater in front of her was anything to go by.

_"That's some anime shit right there. Must have been one heavy motherfucker."_

This was all so weird. Vampires were obviously a lot more durable than any human, ranging from the most average John Doe to the most athletic athlete. She could withstand forces which would splatter any human across any surface.

And yet, she had never heard of a Vampire cracking concrete upon landing on it. It wasn't like they were made of some kind of metal weighing hundreds of pounds.

"What now?" she wondered out loud.

_"Questions and answers," _the other _She_ repeated her earlier answer, once again using Max's thoughts from before. _"Also, maybe don't talk to yourself so much. One might think you are crazy or something."_

Max sighed audibly, massaging her temple, before covering her head with her sweater's hood and stuffing her hands in its pockets.

_Questions and answers_. She remembered Gareth uttering a name once or twice when he needed information on some things. Starting her quest there might not be a bad idea.

At the very least, her nights wouldn't consist of only feeding and being bored anymore.


	2. Club Scarlet

Even during the night, Seattle was bright. Just like any other big city, the Emerald City did not want for a nightlife. Nightclubs, bars and all that jazz.

Max never was the sort to ever enjoy any of those things. Why go out and sweat with other sweaty people on a crowded dancefloor if you could just hole up at home and binge shows on Netflix? Why waste like thirty dollars on four or five cocktails if the same amount spent for snacks and shit could easily last for a week?

Nah, she never understood that whole fascination with bar-hopping and getting wasted and whatnot. She never understood people, _period_.

And yet, here she was, in Seattle, following the frail thread which was her lead: a nightclub, of all things, which was frequented by _people_ like her. She remembered it from Gareth mentioning it once in a while. Whenever he'd need information he'd go there.

Now, so was she. On a quest she went, trying to uncover the mystery of her sire's demise! It was unfortunate that said quest forced her to interact with people – like, talk to them and look in their direction. Scary stuff.

But she had no choice. Her curiosity was _killing _her and she wanted to live.

So, here she was, in Seattle's industrial district, staring at a building, well out of sight from human's curious eyes. It was seemingly abandoned, but Max knew what to look for, so she steeled herself before entering the factory building. The cracked walls, broken windows and layers of dust and debris were not really adding to its already less than welcoming nature.

As if she had been here before, her mind led her effortlessly through the building until she could start to make out the faint noise of nightclub music.

Ugh. It sucked even in the Vampire world.

She followed the bass and soon arrived at stairs leading a floor down. With a sigh, she took them and opened the heavy steel door, stepping through into what most likely was, once upon a time, this factory's basement. Now, it was just a dark maze leading to a Vampire nightclub.

She had no clue how they managed it, but Vampires sure knew how to get around impractical logistics. Creating a functioning club in the former basement of an abandoned factory building was no mean feat. It probably came with a lot of trial and error over the last few centuries, though...or however long Vampires existed.

_"Since the dawn of men."_

"Huh?" Max cocked her head to the side as she kept walking through the basement, following the sound of music.

_"Vampires exist since the dawn of men. Our Kin isn't some special snowflakes or whatever. We've existed as long as humans did. As did everything else. Humans just kind of freaked out at some point, so it was decided to live hidden from them and now they think they are the be-all and end-all of all existence."_

"Thanks for the history lesson I didn't ask for."

_"You are welcome."_

A moment later she turned a corner and arrived at another heavy looking steel door. This one, however, was painted crimson and guarded by a bored-looking and tall guy with slicked-back, dark hair.

And he wore sunglasses. In an unlit basement of an abandoned factory.

"Where's the other one?" he asked her and she could make out the arch of a raised brow from behind his sunglasses.

Max gave him a confused look. "Wha-what do you mean? I'm by myself."

"Don't fuck with me, kid. I heard talking about kin-history and one voice was definitely yours."

Her eyes widened in understanding and surprise. "No way, Miles!" She lowered her voice. "You can hear the...the voices in _my head_?!"

Miles looked at her for a few moments, taking a tentative step back from her. "How...oh. You are one of _those_...shit."

_"What's he talking about?"_

"I'm talking right now, shut up!" Max gave Miles an apologetic and awkward grin. "Sorry. I can't...control it."

"_Right._ What do you want?"

"I'd like to talk to Mr Kevelyan. My sire got killed earlier today and, well, I remember him mentioning a 'Kevelyan' and this place a lot when he talked about needing information."

"And who was your sire?"

"Gareth Tanner."

Now she could see both of Miles's brows peeking out from behind his sunglasses. "Gareth's dead? Damn." He finally opened the door and motioned for her to step through. "Take the first set of stairs on the right. It leads up to the VIP floor. I'll tell the Boss that you are coming. He'll want to know about Gareth."

Max thanked him after stepping through, wincing as the full force of generic nightclub dance music hit her full force.

She was surprised about the bouncer's reaction to Gareth's death. Was he well-liked around here? She knew – she was sure – he was a nobody in this secret world. Just an average Vampire who's insanity-curse was also average. He didn't mingle in the upper class. He didn't know influential Vampires. He was just..._Gareth_. Just her sire who happened to not be an utter ass.

_Weird_.

She took the stairs Miles pointed out to her. Once at the top, another bouncer let her through yet another door and she stepped into what looked like a dimly lit lounge with comfortable-looking red sofas, a very expensive-looking glass table and a blonde man wearing a very fancy suit looking through the window, which overlooked the lower dancefloor.

The man turned to her, gave her a once-over and walked over to take a seat on one of the sofas, indicating for her to do the same.

She sat down awkwardly across from him.

"So you are Gareth's fledgeling." His voice was deep and smooth.

"Yes, sir."

He didn't say anything for a few moments. Instead, he swished around what Max assumed was blood in his glass. Her tongue flicked out from between her lips. She could practically taste it.

As if her desire had been heard, a young girl of around her age entered the lounge with a tablet carrying another glass filled with the delicious red liquid. She put it in front of Max on top of a coaster and left with a curtsy.

"I thought it proper to offer you a drink, considering the circumstances," Mr Kevelyan said, raising his own glass at her. "To your sire."

She raised her own glass at him and hummed in delight when the blood touched her tastebuds for the first time. It was unlike any she had tasted before! So clean, so rich!

"Thirty-two years old. Mother of two. Secretary of the owner of a local business. Does yoga on a regular basis. Has regular checkups with her doctor. Straight-edge." Mr Kevelyan smirked at her. "Once you get used to the taste of healthy blood, it is difficult to go back to the filth on the streets that no one will miss."

That was rude to all the bums and whores, but still, Max didn't doubt he was right. When drinking from a hooker, she could literally taste the drugs and STDs tainting their blood. Drinking from blood bags, on the other hand, was like frozen food: nice, quick and easy but just not as satisfying as the fresh thing.

"Is she a thrall?" she asked her host.

"Indeed she is. My very own and personal thrall. Her blood was brought in just a few hours earlier. I hope you appreciate the gesture."

Her eyes wide, she nodded. "It's very tasty. I never had such clean blood before."

"I can imagine, considering your sire. You never told me your name, little fledgeling."

"It's Max, sir."

"Henrik Kevelyan, owner of _Club Scarlet_. A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Max."

_"Heh. Club Scarlet. So creative."_

Max chuckled at _Her _commentary but stopped when Mr Kevelyan raised a brow at her.

"I'm not really good with names, so I just picked the first thing that came to mind."

Her eyes widened again. "_You _can hear _Her too_?! It's just – it's like Miles outside! He could hear _Her _too!"

"How many interactions did you have outside of Gareth?"

Random question...but okay. "Not a lot. I usually just went out to feed and then back. When I was with Gareth somewhere, I'd usually just observe or chat with...you know..._Her_." Max tapped the side of her head with a finger.

"I see." He took a sip of blood. Max could see his eyes twinkling with amusement. "Now, Max, what exactly brings you here? I doubt you just came to tell me about Gareth's untimely death."

She shook her head. "He always mentioned you when he needed information. So, I figured, I could ask you a few things."

"I hope you realize that information is very expensive."

"Oh." She didn't consider that.

_"Fucking idiot." _

"You could have-" She interrupted herself. Were she still human, she'd have flushed a furious red by now. "Sorry."

"I always found your kind intriguing," Mr Kevelyan said, his head cocked to the side just a bit. "_'The cursed blood'_, they say. The first of your kind...it is said he suddenly suffered from some kind of madness and now his entire bloodline inherits some form of it. No one knows how or why. Kin doesn't get ill. We can't be infected with sickness. We don't catch diseases. If we did, we wouldn't have _rat-suckers_ in our midst." He paused for another sip. "And yet..._your_ kind is the most notorious among our kin because all of you have some form of mental illness. Schizophrenia, paranoia, sociopathy, psychopathy...and all of you have this..._you know things you shouldn't know_. Sometimes you say things without knowing you said it. Did you know that your kind was once heralded as _oracles_? Your sire...he had this..._episode_."

_"Now we are talking!" _the other she exclaimed with a suffering groan, obviously annoyed at that long-winded speech.

"He can hear you, you know!" Max gave Mr Kevelyan a sheepish grin. "Sorry. That was embarrassing…"

He chuckled good-humouredly. "As I said...Gareth had this episode...but before I elaborate, we have to talk about your means of payment."

_"We always knew it'd come to this. Strip and spread your legs, Max. He's handsome, it won't be so bad."_

"What the f– "

"The offer would be more tempting if I had any such desires," the club's owner replied, cutting off her own reaction. "I was thinking of something more practical and long-term."

_"Shame."_

Max shook her head, then returned her attention back to the man sitting across from her. "Like what?"

"Jobs." He placed his empty glass on his coaster and leaned back on his sofa. "Gareth did the same. I'm sure you were aware that he was a bottom-feeder in our little society. So, for any information he wanted, he did jobs for me instead of paying with cash since, well...he was _poor_. Your employment would be more permanent, though. I need someone in Oregon and you seem like a convenient solution."

"Oregon? I'm from Oregon."

"Even better. You don't happen to have heard of Arcadia Bay, have you?"

Max's eyes widened. "I'm from Arcadia Bay!"

"Are you now? Well, then it's settled. You are employed."

Wow. Her first job. "Okay, but I didn't agree to anything yet. What would I even be supposed to do?"

"First, I will tell you what Gareth was actually doing here."

Max leaned a bit forward, eagerly anticipating what would hopefully satisfy her curiosity. "I'm all ears."

"That episode, I mentioned. It wasn't even really an episode, but he said something…" Mr Kevelyan was tapping his chin in thought. "What was it...ah! So, we were having a nice chat. Out of nowhere, he says _'from under the light, above the sea, it will see darkness once more_' and continues as if nothing happened."

_"That's not ominous at all."_

"Indeed. Anyways, it obviously piqued my curiosity. I did a bit of research with Gareth's help and three locations are left. Arcadia Bay would have been the next target. You will go there and see what you can find."

"Huh." Arcadia Bay could have something to do with secret prophetic Vampire stuff? That didn't bode well. And her best – her _former _best friend Chloe was probably still living there. She may hate her guts now for something that was entirely out of her control, but Max still remembered all their pirate-y adventures vividly. She didn't want Chloe to accidentally get caught up in something she couldn't defend herself from. "Okay. I accept."

"Splendid! Now, is there something surrounding Gareth's death I should know about?"

Max shrugged. "I just got back home after feeding and found his ashes in the living room. I-I knew it was him because of his clothes. And...yeah, someone searched for something in his bedroom. Oh!" She held up a finger. "And something jumped from the third floor down and left a crater on the pathway. Must have been something really heavy and non-human."

"I see…"

_"What about the stink?"_

Mr Kevelyan raised a brow in question. "The stink?"

"Oh yeah! I didn't smell anything at first, but just before whatever jumped through the window, I could suddenly smell something...it was really disgusting, like...I don't know. I can't even describe it…"

Mr Kevelyan frowned openly now, his thin, blonde brows furrowed in thought. Max wondered what he was thinking about.

"Thank you for being so open, Max," he finally said, standing up from his seat.

She hastily downed the rest of her glass – already missing its taste – before standing up herself. "Umm, when do I – you know, when do we – Arcadia Bay?"

"I will call one of my thralls and he will drive you there during the day. In a van modified to transport kin when the sun is out." He smirked at her. "You will be able to sleep comfortably and safely."

"Oh. Okay." Didn't sound too bad. She was then led to the VIP lounge's exit by the same young girl who brought her that delicious, _delicious _blood. The girl also handed her a fancy mobile.

"It was a pleasure talking to you, Max," Mr Kevelyan spoke when she reached the door. "I hope your return to your hometown will be fruitful. Don't lose that phone."

"Sure, uhh...thanks! Bye." She walked down the stairs to the club's main floor.

So, already tonight she would be on her way back to sleepy Arcadia Bay. When she woke up a few hours earlier, she sure as hell wouldn't have expected that. She'd be seeing Chloe again. That'd be exciting. Obviously, Chloe wouldn't know. It'd be in secret, during the night. Like a spy gathering intelligence on the enemy. Except that Chloe wasn't the enemy.

_"Or like a fucking creep spying on a girl who's barely an adult, you sick slut."_

"Who – oh, shit, it's you again."

Max didn't say anything to Miles when she hastily made her way outside again. Sometimes she really hated her other _She_.


	3. Worlds Away

She was wide awake the moment her eyes fluttered open.

When still human, Max Caulfield was a lot of things, but being a morning person was definitely _not _among them. Since she got turned, however, she had never been able to sleep in. She simply could not try and catch a few extra minutes of cosy dozing before facing the troublesome real world. Her body simply did not work like that anymore.

The moment the first rays of sunlight touched the sky she'd be dead to the world. The moment the last of the sun had set and the night was upon her, she'd be wide awake. In a way, it was comforting, no doubt. She'd never have trouble falling asleep and she'd always be fit and ready to tackle the day...or night, the moment she woke up. Still, it would be a lie to say that she _didn't _miss simple, human comforts – like sleeping in – from time to time.

But it was what it was. No point in dwelling on such things when there was no way to go back to how her life was a couple of years ago. She'd be a Vampire for hundreds of years if nothing extraordinary happening would cut those hundreds of years short.

Besides, there were more important things she needed to be doing right now, like feeding for instance.

She was hungry as fuck after all.

Swinging her legs down from her makeshift bed, she went to the closed rear doors and pounded her fists against them. From what she could hear, the van had stopped somewhere. No traffic, no radio, no sound from the driver seat in general. She hoped the thrall was close by.

A moment later, the night's air hit her as the thrall, who apparently had indeed been close by, opened the rear doors, allowing her to get outside. Without a word, he handed her two blood bags, which she took gratefully. Without further ado, she nicked a hole into one of them with a fang and began to take greedy gulps through it. Having to consume frozen food after the five-star culinary art she got to try the night before was almost blasphemous. As unfortunate as it was, however, she couldn't just go and narrow her preys of choice to only soccer-mums and keeping thralls was just too much work: always checking up on them and making sure they didn't give anything secret away by accident and always making sure that their blood-levels were healthy...thanks, but no, thanks.

Frozen pizza and instant ramen were the way to go. _Maybe_ she could treat herself to a Beef Wellington from Gordon Ramsay every other month, though. No suspicion would arise and no thralls needed to be maintained.

She could just snatch one during an evening jog to snack.

Heh. What would Gordon Ramsay say if he knew that she compared what was equivalent to exquisite five-star cuisine to _snacks_? He would probably yell at her and say things like '_ye fockin' donkey_!' Did that even sound Scottish? Didn't matter. She'd never get yelled at by Chef Ramsay anyway, no matter how much she wanted it.

Max tossed the emptied bag into the back of the van and nicked the other one, quickly draining that one too. Once done, she allowed herself a satisfied sigh. "That's the stuff."

Her head then swivelled around, her eyes taking in her surroundings for the first time. It looked like they were in a parking area close to a forest. She took in the scents of wildlife, of pine trees, of fresh, crisp air. She saw buildings with bathroom and shower signs and another larger building. A few moments later it dawned on her that the thrall had parked the van at a popular campsite's parking area, just outside of Arcadia Bay. It was empty, though.

"It's been closed since last year," the thrall answered her unasked question in a soft voice. "Don't know why."

"Huh." She shrugged. It was a pity, sure. Many memories of her childhood with Chloe were about them camping with their families.

Oh, well. Nothing to be done about it.

"Umm...what do I do now?"

The thrall walked around to the front of the van and opened the passenger door. She shrugged and sat down on the storage space, which had been her bedroom for a few hours, while listening to the sounds of him searching around. A few moments later he reappeared with a key, a backpack and a notebook.

"The key is for your housing. The backpack has money for you to spend. The notebook has any further information you may need."

"'Kay."

The thrall looked at her for a moment, his eyes blank and soulless. "I have to leave."

"Oh! Right, sure." She got up and out of the way, allowing him to close the van's rear doors. She then watched him wordlessly get into the driver's seat, turn the engine on and back out of the parking area and onto the highway.

And now she was all by herself.

"What an odd guy," Max muttered, then shrugged. She opened the notebook and was glad to find the exact address of her new home written on the first page.

It probably would have been more practical to just send her all that stuff via mobile message – digital age and all that – but she was a little hipster at her unbeating heart and couldn't not appreciate the classic way of doing things.

She kind of missed her polaroid camera too. Maybe she'd get herself a new one with the money, just for the heck of it, and to pass the time in-between her investigation of...whatever.

Her brows rose high and vanished behind her fringe upon reading the address and realizing where exactly her apartment was located. There were no expenses spared, by the looks of it. Poor Gareth.

With a shrug, she shouldered the backpack after stowing the notebook in it, pocketed the key and started to walk away from the parking lot and towards Arcadia Bay. The town was already visible from where she was.

The sight was so different from what she became accustomed to in Seattle. No shiny neon in the night, no clubs and bars and nothing akin to Aurora Ave. All she saw were the streetlights illuminating the town and the headlights from a few cars in the distance.

Arcadia Bay really was a sleepy little place. Nothing was going on in that town.

...except for some secret and supernatural Vampire stuff, apparently. Possibly.

A part of her was already regretting her decision to get involved in this stuff. She could have just lived on in Seattle and not worried about anything but her next meal.

But that would have been a boring life. Or afterlife. Unlife?

_"Idiot."_

After a while – and without gracing her other _She's _comment with a reaction – she finally and officially arrived in Arcadia Bay.

The distinctive salty smell of the sea was still very much prominent. Nothing appeared to have changed. It was almost as if the town had been caught in time. As picturesque as ever. Max took as much of it in as she could, trying to soak in the very essence of what this place meant to her.

She passed by an old RV parked by a dumpster, after a bit of walking, and heard her other _She _giggle at the obvious sounds coming from inside it. She also passed by a bakery and then by a larger shopping mall she didn't remember being here before. What she did remember were local stores tightly sitting next to each other. She remembered going with her mum to Mr Jenkin's grocery store or buying sweets with Chloe at Mrs Robertson's.

She sighed at the sight of the mall. "Capitalism didn't spare Arcadia Bay either, it seems." It was a pity to see the local market being replaced by a generic shopping mall. Places that other people worked hard for were gone and now, in their stead, there was something bigger. Always striving for bigger and better and more grandeur was what society was all about these days. People just didn't appreciate the charm of an elderly lady selling sweets in her tiny shop anymore.

After a bit more of strolling around her hometown, she finally arrived at the address given in the notebook. Looking at the place, she cocked her head to the side.

It could be worse, she supposed. Like, a lot worse.

The apartment building looked so very clean and new and modern, it didn't really fit into Arcadia Bay's overall aesthetic. Standing yea stories tall, white as snow and just –

Her inner hipster was screaming in agony. A building like this belonged in Seattle or Manhattan or someplace along those lines and not in sleepy Arcadia Bay.

Looking at it pragmatically, however, this was very promising...now all she had to do was check out the apartment itself.

She quickly walked to the building's front door and unlocked it, after trying to do so with the wrong key at first. Pulling out the notebook from her backpack again, Max quickly checked the information for her apartment and took a turn to the left hallway. She passed the doors of several other apartments until she arrived at the one displaying the number of hers. After unlocking it, she stepped inside and immediately got the same feeling she got when looking at the building from the outside: it was modern, it was fancy, it was sterile. Totally the opposite of her.

_"Stop bitching and enjoy the fact that we will not be living in a rat-infested and abandoned shithole for a while."_

"It was a mansion though," Max replied in defence of her old home. "It wasn't a shithole."

_"It was a shithole and you know it."_

She did. But she also knew that arguing with her other _She _would only result in killer headaches, so it was better to not engage in a back-and-forth with _Her_. Instead, she opted to walk around the apartment and marvel at how expensive and..._white _everything looked. White desk, white bed, white couch, white coffee table. Zero imagination.

_"You could literally bitch about anything else. It's not like you are about to pop out kids for your hubby in here and live here with your family for the next twenty years! You are here for a job. It's temporary. Idiot."_

"You are such an asshole sometimes," Max complained with a frown. "I'm allowed to have an opinion about things."

_"But it's fucking annoying. Just. Enjoy. The. Luxury."_

"Fuck off."

When there was no further reply forthcoming from _Her_, Max decided to head to the bathroom and make use of the prepared utensils instead.

Brushing teeth as a Vampire was a bit of a pain though because toothpaste now made her want to throw up. She didn't know why and Gareth just grunted and shrugged when she asked him about it. Still, oral hygiene was important. If her fangs were to fall out how else would she be able to pierce the necks of her victims to drink their blood?

After gagging and dry-heaving and doing her best to keep her dinner in her stomach, she rinsed her mouth and went to the living room and plopped down on the couch. "What now?"

_"You wanted to stalk your childhood friend or not?" _

"I didn't want to stalk her. I just wanted to make sure she's okay."

_"Whatever you say."_

"Where would I even begin to look for her?" Max wondered out loud. "What if she moved away? What if she didn't move away but isn't at home? What if she is at home but has a boyfriend over?"

_"You pussy-ass bitch. Get your flat ass off that couch and move!"_

Max got up to her feet, a deep frown firmly etched onto her face. She angrily patted her worn jeans' pockets to make sure she had her mobile and keys before stomping to the apartment door, opening it angrily and closing it louder than necessary once she was out in the hallway.

"I don't have a flat ass," she muttered angrily under her breath. "My ass is nice."

* * *

44, Cedar Ave.

It was weird, seeing that house again after so many years. So much of her childhood had been spent here.

She sighed as all those shenanigans Chloe and she had been up to became vivid once more, rushing to the forefront of her mind instead of remaining distant memories. Her heart ached for what she had lost: a friend for a lifetime. A sister in all but blood.

It was unreal, even today, how from one moment to another everything came crashing down around them both. William died and she was forced to move away, to leave her grieving friend behind. It wasn't like she wanted to, but the angry, hurting Chloe didn't care.

Life could be cruel and even more so now, considering how she was still worlds away from Chloe despite being just across the street from her home – if she still lived there.

She didn't dare to cross the street to check. Someone could come out and see her.

Had Chloe and Joyce even heard of her disappearance? Of her parents' fate? It was unlikely that they made it to her 'funeral'. Seattle was a ways away from Arcadia Bay after all.

She missed those innocent years when it was just Chloe and her and their silly adventures. When life was just fun and games. When they would talk about their hopes and dreams until late into the night.

Hopes and dreams which would always involve each other.

The headlights of an arriving pick-up truck pulled her out of her musings. It blinded her for a moment, but she quickly hid behind the car of the family living across from hopefully Chloe.

The driver parked the pick-up in front of the garage and out stepped definitely a girl, but, even though she could see perfectly well in the dark, Max could not really make out enough features to determine if it was her former best friend or not.

What she could make out was the girl looking at the spot where she got caught in the beat-up truck's headlights.

"Hello?"

The voice sounded familiar. Richer, more mature, but distinctly Chloe. Max was sure of it.

"Someone there? I saw you watching the house you fucking creep."

Max wanted to jump out and show herself and talk to Chloe, but she couldn't. Not with her _condition_.

So she watched, hidden from sight. She watched the girl – the girl she was sure was Chloe – unlock the house's front door and step inside.

She watched the house for another hour, or maybe more. She wasn't sure.

She was so, _so _close to her best friend. But still, she was worlds away.


	4. American Rust

Finding food in Arcadia Bay was a bit more tricky than in Seattle, she had to admit. Society's lowlifes – not her opinion – existed in abundance in the Pacific Northwest's largest metropolis. She could even allow herself the luxury of being picky.

That wasn't the case in Arcadia Bay, though. While this seaside town did have its own fair share of troubles, it was not even close to what she experienced in Seattle. Here, she'd only find the local drunkard or the local rowdies. Actual gangs? Nonexistent. Homelessness? Didn't really catch the eye. Drug problems? It was there but very low in comparison to Seattle.

Still, the fact that Arcadia Bay only had a fraction of Seattle's population was the riskiest aspect of her feeding here. Disappearing bodies in Seattle was not such a big deal. The Vampire society was strong there and it was a lucrative business. According to Mr Kevelyan, however, she was the first Vampire in three to four years to step foot into Arcadia Bay. At least to his knowledge and knowledge was his side-business. Or was his nightclub the side-business? She wasn't sure. She just knew that he earned a ton of money with his knowledge of all things, so, yeah.

All these thoughts and more went through her mind as she took greedy gulps of the warm liquid filling her mouth. Her victim – some guy she snatched from a dark alley in the town's less reputable district while he was peeing behind a dumpster – had stopped his twitching and struggling and she knew that meant that he was losing consciousness, slowly slipping into the embrace of death. She wasn't a fan of drinking from one person until they experienced hemorrhagic shock or even died, but it would be stupid to not to. Gareth whacked her over the head once, after she asked him why they couldn't just drink from several people a night and leave them alive that way.

_"Yeah, why not have thousands of people walk around with a couple of fucking holes in their necks and wherever else you decide to bite them, huh? And all of them confused because of blood loss? Some with weird memories of someone sucking their blood? Not suspicious at all, right?"_

That was a bit of an _oops_-moment for her. At least she could find solace on the fact that killing her food this way would be largely painless for them. They might panic – she remembered some dude shitting himself once and that was the most uncomfortable feeding she ever had – but dying from loss of blood was largely painless.

Google said so.

At least her view was nicer than it was when feeding in Seattle, but she wouldn't go through _that _trouble again: since she figured that the ocean cliff with the lighthouse would be a safe place to feed in peace, she knocked the guy out and carried him around the town with his _thing_ still hanging out. She even got some of his pee on her converse sneakers.

Seriously _not_ worth the trouble.

Still, since she was here, she could enjoy the crashing waves against the cliff in the night, and the smell of chilly, salty sea air.

Finally feeling full, she pulled her fangs out from her prey's neck with a gasp, the coppery taste thankfully overpowering the unwashed sweaty and grimy skin; that was drinking from the homeless for you, but she really couldn't complain, considering it was her choice.

She still shivered a bit, her fingers digging into the ground as she was on her hands and knees.

It was an uncomfortable feeling, the loss of control when feeding. The utter greed and desire for blood were overpowering once she got that first taste on her tongue, and she always needed a few moments afterwards to collect herself.

Still, it was nothing compared to the times when she almost lost her grip on her sanity. _That _was really scary; as if her entire conscious was slipping away, replaced by something that was part of her but not _really _her. As if she was a spectator in her own mind without being aware of it.

Once she felt like herself again, she got up from her knees and dusted them off.

She glanced at the body.

The guy was dead. During her feeding, she had felt his breathing stop and his pulse, which had already been very shallow for a while, disappear.

What really saddened her, however, was that it was highly unlikely that anybody would care enough about him to immediately go looking for him, let alone realize that he was gone in the first place. Such was the life of society's bottom-feeders. There was nothing she could do about it though, so she pushed the guy towards the edge of the cliff and down into the sea below.

She then walked towards the bench to sit down.

The night was still young and she was actually on business here. With her hunger satisfied, Max took the backpack she had put there before feeding and retrieved the notebook. She still hadn't taken the time to actually read it and now was as good a time as any.

She skipped the first page since it only said _Address Information _and she had already seen that yesterday. Instead, she opened the next page.

"VIPs...that's interesting," she muttered to herself. She knew of the Prescotts, who basically owned Arcadia Bay. Most of the other names, like the captain of the local police, didn't mean anything to her, but some, like Principal Raymond Wells of prestigious Blackwell Academy, stood out.

Then, she reached the bottom. "Frank Bowers...local drug dealer...how is _he _a V...I...oh."

She should have just read it before heading out.

* * *

Max walked up to the junkyard, the place where she would meet with Frank Bowers, the local drug dealer. She wasn't particularly looking forward to associating with someone like him, but, according to the notebook, he _knew _about her world – about the existence of Vampires and Werewolves among other things – and, apparently, he could get his hands on blood bags.

Something that would make her life _definitely_ easier.

Soon enough, she spotted the RV she passed yesterday after arriving at Arcadia Bay. Apparently, it was this Frank Bowers person who _got some_ then.

She looked around the junkyard, taking the place in. Befitting its name, there was nothing but junk to see. Old cars, a boat in the far corner, piles of planks and anything else people needed to dump somewhere. It definitely looked like a good place to feed and hang out at, but it was unfortunate that it didn't have the nice ocean view of the lighthouse's cliff.

She walked up to the mostly junk-free centre of the yard where she could see a tall and tattooed blonde man with a goatee waiting for her.

He looked her up and down, eyeing her with caution – something she assumed was a natural safety-procedure in his business. "You the bloodsucker?" he asked her with a gruff voice.

_"What a rude cocksucker."_

He looked stunned for a moment, then his expression morphed into an angry grimace. "What. The fuck. Did you just say?" He pulled out a switchblade-knife and advanced towards her. "Someone needs to learn some manners."

Max's eyes widened in surprise. "Wait, wait, wait! You can hear _Her _too? Why can everyone hear _Her_?!"

The drug dealer looked at her suspiciously, the blade of his knife still hidden away. "Hear who?"

"The other one!" Max insisted. "In my head!"

Frank's eyes narrowed a bit. Then, suddenly, he burst out into barking laughter, Max joining in with nervous giggles of her own, so she didn't exactly know just what it was that was so funny. "Holy shit! I've heard of those crazy-as-shit Vampires but to actually meet one? _Lucky me_."

"You weren't really trying to come at me with that knife, were you?" Max wondered as he put it back in his jeans' pocket. "That wouldn't really have done much."

Frank grinned at her menacingly. "It doesn't matter with what you damage a Vamp, as long as you damage it enough."

She didn't have the heart to tell him that, with her supernatural strength, she could have punched him across the junkyard and left him in a broken and bloody heap. All of that, before he even could have scratched her with that knife.

"So, let's get down to business," Frank began. "The hospital isn't all that big, so I can't just go and get you a couple of blood bags every day without them noticing."

Max nodded. "I understand." Biting her lips, she looked at the ground. After a moment she returned her attention back to the drug dealer. "Would six bags a week be okay? My biggest worry is the attention that missing bums could, you know, draw."

Frank stroked his goatee while humming in thought. "Hadn't thought of that. I'll contact someone in Portland, see what I can get there."

Had to be good enough for now. "Thanks."

With a snort and a shake of his head, he walked towards his RV. "I'll send you a message when I've got something."

Her hands stuffed in her hoodie's pockets, she watched him climb into his driver's seat. Moments later, the old RV drove away, leaving her alone in the junkyard.

She decided to take a look around this place, around this _American Rust Junkyard_. Catchy name for a place where people just dumped their trash in the middle of nature. Said nature certainly didn't care if it was _American Rust _or _German Rust _or _Russian Rust_. Junk was junk when it came to pollution.

_"Can you just shut up and walk? It's not like any of this can affect you."_

Max scoffed at her other _She_. "It doesn't matter if it affects me or not."

Alas, she was just one lone Vampire whose craving for blood drove her every night. There was little she could do. Still, that didn't mean she had to like such thoughtlessness.

Taking a look around, she wandered a bit. After a few moments, she noticed the wrecked outhouse and the lingering scent coming from there; stale beer, cigarettes, the faint and lingering traces of perfume and other things she couldn't quite discern. With a curious hum, she went to the brick building, taking in its cracked walls, broken windows, missing door and the garbage surrounding it. Max noticed that the roof was really nothing more than a bunch of slate and wooden planks. She wondered if this place was just half-built or trashed _after_ it was built.

Once stepping inside, there were lots of empty beer bottles, cigarette buds and tons of empty pizza boxes.

She kinda missed pizza.

"Vortex Club," Max muttered after spotting a flyer. "Sounds tacky and exclusive."

She then spotted a trio of photos. Walking over, she could almost feel her heart beating again at seeing her childhood friend all grown up. Apparently, she had stumbled into Chloe's little hideout. She wondered who the other girl in the photos was though. Her shoulders slumped a bit. "At least she wasn't all alone, I guess. Blue hair kind of suits her too."

She regretted the time she missed with Chloe, but it was nothing she could have changed. _Wanted_ to have changed, sure, but she _couldn't_.

_"Those two bitches wanted to ditch this backwater shithole for LA," _her other _She _commented.

Max turned to look at the graffiti, noting several hinting at LA, as well as multiple posters. They sure seemed to be dreaming big.

Then, her eyes caught on another graffiti. "Chloe was here...Rachel was here...huh, so I guess that's this Rachel girl in the photos."

_"Mess with them."_

Max shook her head in confusion. "What?"

_"There's a sharpie over there. Mess with them."_

"How?"

_"Write 'Max was here.' That'll freak them out."_

Her eyes widened at that thought. It would be so creepy and cruel, she wasn't sure she could bring herself to do that to Chloe.

_"Live a little!"_

Her eyes flickered to the sharpie on the spool table. She bit her bottom lip, one of her fangs piercing it shallowly. Just a little bit of harmless fun...except it wasn't really harmless.

_"You know what Shia Lebauf would say?"_

Max giggled despite herself. "Just do it," she muttered under her breath and grabbed the sharpie.

And then, right below Rachel's name, she added it.

_Max was here_.

It could be kinda funny if she wasn't so sure that it would very likely really mess with Chloe. She kinda felt bad. So, she quickly added something, which she hoped would soften the blow.

_I'm glad you are okay, Chloe. I am too. Kind of._

_"Wimp."_

Max shrugged, placing the sharpie back in its original spot. "I just can't mess with Chloe like that. This way...I can contact her without contacting her, you know? She's...she was like a sister to me. Still is, even with everything that happened."

Her other _She _didn't say anything to that.

Whatever.

It was time to head back home anyway.

* * *

**ecoolasice: **Thank you for being the first to review here on FFN! Yes, Max's disappearance did touch Chloe. Even if estranged, it can't be easy to receive such news, especially if the last traded words were cruel and hurtful. Beyond that, I try to do my best to stay close to the characters.


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